


Ambuscade

by Water_Nix



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 06:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3841336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Water_Nix/pseuds/Water_Nix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Ronan receives an upsetting gift, Blue, seeking levity, suggests a way to dispatch its contents. Gansey and Adam are taken by surprise. Ronan/Blue shenanigans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ambuscade

The package is delivered by someone official-looking, wearing a stiff suit and greasy demeanour like a second skin. There's no way the man isn't a lawyer or private detective or politician. Although Blue would never voice her opinion on the latter in front of Gansey.    
  
Ronan takes it timidly like he's worried it might explode the moment it makes contact with his fingertips. When it doesn't, he exhales shakily through his nose and closes the door in the greasy man's face without a word.   
  
"Fuck," he mutters under his breath. "That bastard," he says more loudly. The shake of his voice is uncharacteristic. Blue is used to his flippancy, his no-nonsense remarks and casual rudeness. He looks struck, standing there staring down at the label on the box. His eyes seem to swim for a moment, before he blinks rapidly and sets the box on a low table cluttered with Gansey's books and papers.   
  
"What is it?" she asks. She takes a step closer. She's getting used to Ronan, growing less cautious in his presence. They haven't had a good stare-down in nearly a week. She slides her fingers around the edge of the box and turns it slightly so she can read the label. Ronan does nothing to try and stop her.   
  
"It's from him," he says. His voice sounds watery. "Like he fucking _knew_."   
  
Blue has no idea who Ronan means by _him_. His father? One of his brothers? Someone from Aglionby?   
  
But then she sees it. Beneath the scratchy writing, beneath Ronan's name and the address to Monmouth Manufacturing, there's a drawing. A splattered knife. It's something she's seen before. Over and over on a long line of near identical white Mitsubishis. 

"Kavinsky," she says. Ronan visibly winces at the name and she wishes she hadn't said it out loud.   
  
He stares at the box like it's something vile, something poisonous. She knows what it's like to avoid something, what it's like to feel it tug at you, like some magnet draws you to it no matter how much you protest. It keeps you from sleeping and slowly drives you to distraction until you give in.   
  
"Want me to open it for you?"   
  
He meets her eyes. The look is without its usual challenge. His deep blue eyes are wide and fearful, his long lashes the slightest bit damp. He nods once and takes half a step backwards.   
  
She lifts the box and digs her nails into the brown paper that covers it, tearing through Kavinsky's artwork and Ronan's name.   
  
The box has no top. With the paper breached, dozens upon dozens of small squares in a veritable rainbow of colours spill out all over the floor. Blue catches one between her fingers. The label reads: Ribbed for His Pleasure.   
  
"Condoms?" she says. Confused, she riffles around in the nearly empty box until she finds a long strip of white paper. Spidery handwriting fills it from end to end.   
  
_when you stop being a fucking pussy come on over. it can be just like it was. all the fucking time. K_  
  
" _Oh_."   
  
Ronan snatches the strip of paper from her loose grip and crams it into the pocket of his tight jeans.   
  
But that would mean... Things line up in her head, things she's heard and seen and sensed. Her mouth goes dry.   
  
Ronan isn't looking at her, not at first. But then he raises his eyes. The stare-down. This is something familiar. It reassures her that things between them are going to be all right.   
  
"You know," she says, turning the condom this way and that. The sun that streams in through the grimy window reflects off the metallic purple wrapper. "They say condoms make superb water balloons."   
  
"Superb, huh? Someone's been spending a little too much time with Gansey." His eyes narrow slightly, but Blue can tell when his annoyance is real and when it's fake. She can see a sliver of gratitude in the tilt of his mouth.  
  
"Too right, old man," she says, imitating Gansey's cultured accent.  
  
A sly grin breaks across Ronan's face. The expression 'like the sun' feels too innocent to describe Ronan, but that's exactly how it feels to Blue--the warmth in the dusty, cavernous room increases tenfold.   
  
She hears Noah's gentle murmur of "Oh, dear" from somewhere near the pool table.   
  
  
~*~  
  
  
Gansey waited for Adam to finish his shift at the garage. Whatever he'd been working on--something about a gasket--ran over quitting time and they're running nearly an hour late meeting Blue and Ronan.   
  
He hears something like the caw of a bird, far-off and muffled through the windows of the Pig when he shuts off the engine. He steps out into the sunshiny afternoon, sharing a glance with Adam. _What was that?_  
  
He's two steps away from the Pig when something zooms through the air next to him. The object ricochets off of the front bumper of Ronan's BMW and bounces, coming to land at Gansey's feet. It bursts open, soaking his Top-siders.   
  
"Direct hit!" Blue's voice crows from above.   
  
"Bullshit, it fucking bounced." Ronan.   
  
Gansey looks towards their voices and when he blocks the sun from his eyes, can make them out. They're hanging out of a top floor window. He sees something falling from the sky, but he's too dopey to move in time.   
  
The water balloon hits him squarely in the face.   
  
" _That's_ a direct hit," Ronan says.   
  
Blue sounds like she's choking on her laughter. Or that may just be the water plugging Gansey's ear. He shakes his head and wipes a hand over his eyes. His face feels greasy where the balloon made contact. His skin coated, the water beading strangely.   
  
It takes him half a moment to figure it out. Half a moment and Adam dodging sideways as another water balloon sails through the air towards them. He watches it hit the pavement, bouncing once before exploding water all over the Pig's front left tire.  
  
"Jesus! Was that a condom?" Gansey yells toward the window. The answering howls of laughter prove his hypothesis.   
  
He pulls a face and fastidiously wipes at the lubrication on his cheek. "We leave you unsupervised for a single hour--"   
  
He's cut off by a loud squawk just like the one he thought he heard earlier. Another condom balloon barrels toward him. He manages to jump out of the way this time.   
  
"Blast!" Blue yells from the window.   
  
Another quickly follows it, and another, until Adam is cursing under his breath, soaked from neck to knees. "Ronan!" he hollers.   
  
Gansey grabs him by the arm and pulls him into the shelter of the building.   
  
"Come out, come out wherever you are!" Ronan taunts.   
  
"How many of those things could they possibly have?" Gansey whispers to Adam. "Should we sneak up and attempt to disarm them?"   
  
"How many are even in a pack?" The tips of Adam's ears are red. "Twelve?"   
  
"I think so."  
  
"So you don't know either?"   
  
Gansey clears his throat. "Why would I?"   
  
Adam shrugs. "Let's just..."   
  
They push open the door.   
  
And are immediately ambushed.   
  
Gansey loses track of himself, loses track of how many times he's hit, how many times he bumps into Adam who is flailing beside him, trying to get away. They block each other up in the doorway, and when Gansey finally pushes free, the assault seems to have come to an end. He is drenched from head to toe. His vision is blurred by the water, his hearing the same. Blue and Ronan's manic laughter sounds strange and far away. A towel drifts down on top of his head.   
  
"I told them not to," Noah says.   
  
Gansey sighs.   
  
"That felt like more than twelve," Adam says from behind him.   
  
"A lot more," Gansey agrees.   
  
  



End file.
